- 7 weeks ago
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00:00I'll be there.
00:07This is wild.
00:21You want to reach for the television screen and hold the two guys and say, you know, don't do this.
00:26When I read it, I just leapt up from the couch.
00:28Oh my, oh my God, oh my God.
00:31You can't do this, it's Kenny.
00:32I was devastated.
00:34I was really hurt.
00:36I just collapsed and just started sobbing.
00:38Shane?
00:38Shane!
00:39The Shield is a cop show set in Los Angeles.
01:04It's about a strike team of cops who are on a drug task force.
01:08The strike team are like brothers in a lot of ways and bring out the best in each other and also bring out the worst in each other.
01:15The character of Lem, played by Kenny Johnson, has been under pressure by IED.
01:20They caught him with some heroin in the previous season that really he was just trying to clean up for his friend Shane, played by Walton Goggins.
01:27Given time, he would have turned State's evidence.
01:30And so it really became about him or us.
01:35There's a way for me to take the hit solo.
01:37No, there's not, man.
01:39No, there's not.
01:39Man, Kavanaugh, Acevedo, the DA, there's no other deal to make.
01:46They're going to make you give us up.
01:48Shane made the decision to sacrifice Lem for the greater good of the team.
01:56He pulls out a grenade that he had pocketed from a bust earlier that evening and he pulls the pin and puts it in Lem's lap and kills him.
02:04Shane?
02:05Shane?
02:05When Sean called us and told us about it, it was, on an artistic level, it was undeniably brilliant.
02:16It was Shakespearean.
02:17And to have an opportunity where a best friend has to take the life of another best friend for the protection of the whole,
02:25that's something you never get to see.
02:26It's a very, very rare, dramatic situation.
02:30The reason for, I think, that we did it in the first place was that we had done about four seasons already,
02:35and Vic and his guys had wreaked havoc, they'd killed people, but none of the group ever suffered losing one of their own.
02:44Think about it.
02:45There was no other character that could have the kind of impact of a loss than Lem was the conscience of the strike team.
02:52Any show can have a shocking death or have a shocking moment.
02:56Where you try to strive for greatness, though, is in planning and earning these moments in a way that seems surprising yet inevitable.
03:05If you don't earn it, then it's just cheap sensationalism.
03:08Oh, we killed, you killed off a character. How exciting.
03:11A crew and a cast who work together on the field and on stage every day is a family.
03:15And I think there were people in that family pissed at us because they like Kenny so much.
03:21You know, we've all in our lives have had to make hard decisions that we know are going to leave us not the same.
03:29I knew that I was making the right decision creatively for the show, but I didn't relish it. I wasn't gleeful about it.
03:36I indirectly found out through, um, maybe internal sources over at Fox that leaked something to my manager.
03:45I walked in the house and, you know, my wife now was upstairs and I think about it, I get emotional.
03:51I just, like, walked halfway up the stairs and I just collapsed and just started sobbing.
03:56I didn't know why, but I just uncontrollably just sobbed and sobbed.
03:59Kenny was acting weird and I know him very, very well and I know his life.
04:04And I asked him one day, after two days of acting weird, I said, you know, what's going on?
04:10Is it this, this, this, this, or this?
04:12He said, no.
04:13I said, it's the show, isn't it?
04:15He didn't say anything.
04:17I said, you're leaving, aren't you?
04:18He didn't say anything.
04:20And I said, is it by choice?
04:22And he didn't say anything.
04:24And then I just started bawling, started crying.
04:28And Kenny started crying.
04:30Because he, you know, had made an agreement not to give up this information.
04:35I just said, okay, Sean, listen, you know, I know you've got your reasons.
04:39I know you've thought this through.
04:40But I, I, I have to wrestle with it.
04:43I called Kenny and really within minutes, we already started to talk about the artistic merit of the idea.
04:52It was one of those things where the, you, personally, it was devastating, but artistically, it was thrilling.
04:57I was like, oh my God, this is going to be sick.
05:00But, ugh, you know, Kenny, shit, you know, it's going to suck to not come to work and see the lemon.
05:07I didn't know when I found out that I was going to do it.
05:10And then, uh, when I found out, I was devastated.
05:15I was really hurt.
05:16When I found out it was going to be Walton, a part of me was kind of happy that it was, like, from my own guy.
05:22It meant more to me.
05:23He and I actually have known each other for, like, ten years.
05:25And so, we know each other so well that it goes deeper than just the shield.
05:29He is my friend.
05:30And he is my confidant.
05:32And we've gone through this together.
05:33So once I, I took that point of view, Kenny did the same.
05:37Then we said, okay, buddy, let's hold hands in this.
05:39And let's go forward and see where this takes us.
05:42It's going to work.
05:43We began at midnight, and it was, uh, gut-wrenching.
05:50I couldn't be there.
05:52I know they asked me to be there, but Walton and Kenny understood I didn't want to be there.
05:57It was just too much.
05:59I didn't want to see it.
06:00And, and also for myself as an actor, I wanted the first time that I saw Lemonhead to be in the car in the aftermath.
06:08You know, the first, uh, action, uh, was called.
06:10And we started finding our way through it, finding all these layers and, you know, what does this mean and what does this mean?
06:17It was very loosely marked.
06:19And basically, they left it up to us to, you know, just, just go.
06:23You know, just he and I just in those moments for the first time.
06:26I don't rehearse with actors just in general and in principle.
06:32I, I don't.
06:33We both work that way, so I think it's better.
06:35Instead of rehearse, rehearse, this is where you have to do this and this.
06:38I'm going to walk away.
06:39I'm listening, you know.
06:40Where's Vic?
06:41I want to talk to Vic.
06:43And then I'm going to take my time and do my thing.
06:45Whatever has to happen is for what that means to me.
06:47Why?
06:48I mean, it's not about that, right?
06:49I mean, everybody's got their own method of, of acting, um, and, and Walton needs his personal space.
06:56And a lot of times when, when, when their big scenes are in, they involve something pretty deep.
07:00I'm on my own and I don't like to talk to anybody either.
07:03And we both know that about each other.
07:05So he stood on one side of the parking lot.
07:07I stood on the other side and we didn't talk.
07:09I mean, this is the scene.
07:11This is the scene of the show.
07:12This is the scene of the season.
07:13This is maybe the scene of the series.
07:16So, you know, so we're not going to rush through it.
07:18We can't let Kavanaugh catch us with you, man.
07:24What was important to me and the things that are always most important to me on the shield are the moments between the lines.
07:30And there's a moment there when Shane makes a decision and believes that Lam has turned on, on him and the other guys.
07:38And I just didn't want to rush through that moment.
07:41You have to take your time and, and you have to sell the moment when Shane makes the decision he makes.
07:46It's all about family, right?
07:49We trust each other completely as actors.
07:52I just kept whispering things to him.
07:54Man, there were personal stuff between him and me.
07:56He just kept whispering things back and forth to get us emotionally just hooked into it.
08:01It was very, very intense, man.
08:02At one point, I was, I got so angry and so on my head that, you know, it was like, I turned to the monitor, turned to the camera, and I said, you want to see what pain is?
08:13You want to see it?
08:14Does this make you feel good?
08:15Okay.
08:16All right, here it is.
08:17If we did our jobs, you saw the love going into the act, and you saw the love after the, the, the, the act, the decision to, to drop a grenade in his lap.
08:43Lim, Lim, I'm sorry, but I had to, right?
08:54But you know I'm sorry.
08:56I'm so sorry, man.
08:58Buddy.
09:00All right, brother.
09:02All right, this is going to be great.
09:04No, Kenny's fine.
09:06Kenny will be fine.
09:07Kenny's a great actor.
09:09He's going to go do other things.
09:11Poor me.
09:11I'm not going to see Kenny.
09:12I just miss him.
09:14His energy and commitment and what he brings to the table.
09:17He makes me a better actor.
09:19And, um, and so that's painful.
09:22You have this great setup for season six where Vic is on the hunt for Lim's killer with blood on his mind, but the guy who really did it having his back and Vic not knowing, which has led to some really, really great storylines that we've been able to film for season six.
09:39It sets the pick for everything that's coming up.
09:42And that's pretty juicy, juicy, juicy, juicy.
09:44Vic Mackey is a loyal guy, and he's hell-bent on finding whoever it was who did it and ending them.
09:55Imagine his surprise.
09:57I'm going to find out who did this.
10:00I'm going to kill him.
10:01We'll see what happens.
10:02We'll see what happens.
10:03We'll see what happens.
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